


Twenty Questions

by dexwebster



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Cinematic Universe
Genre: Breathplay, Choking, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-10 15:20:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11129499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dexwebster/pseuds/dexwebster
Summary: Clark tries to figure out why Bruce is asking him all of these questions.It's veryromanticchoking and breathplay, okay?Written to fill a prompt on theDCEU Kinkmeme.





	Twenty Questions

"How did you learn to control your strength?" 

It was the first indication Clark had that Bruce was awake. He made the mistake of glancing down to see him, watching him work. The split second was enough to cause a typo that sent Clark's fingers into a ten word pile-up before he could stop. He'd done what any self-respecting reporter would do when they woke up in the bed of a handsome naked billionaire: gotten out his laptop and started writing. He owed Perry a story for the weekend edition. 

"I ate a lot of scrambled eggs." Clark started backspacing. The muscles of Bruce's back shifted invitingly as he rolled onto his stomach in the sea of white bedding. He was sleep-rumpled, unshaven, and had pillow creases and a skeptical look on his face. He was lightyears more beautiful than he had been in his bespoke suit when they went to bed. 

"Scrambled eggs?"

"My mom used to volunteer to make a pile of angel food cakes for the school bake sales and made me crack and separate all the eggs. Get even a drop of yolk in the whites and they're useless." Clark set the computer aside and scrunched down from where he was propped against the plush padded headboard. 

Bruce Wayne was using two services while he was in Metropolis on business: a palatial hotel penthouse, and a free nightly shuttle service courtesy of Clark so Batman could still patrol Gotham. He had taken one night, one single night, for the two of them. Clark wasn't going to waste the opportunity, story or not. They met in the middle to kiss, Bruce dragging himself up as Clark slouched. "Why—mmm, do you ask?"

"Just curious. If I could do the things you can I'd probably break the keyboard." 

"That wasn't exactly a bloodless battle either," Clark admitted as his hand drifted down Bruce's back. "These days the springs and I have reached a détente. I don't type too fast and they stay attached to my computer." 

A lock of hair fell messily across Bruce's temple when he collapsed, laughing wry and warm against Clark's stomach.

It was idyllic. 

Which is why it was obvious Bruce was lying through his teeth.  


* * *

In Bruce's bed again, a few weeks later. Gotham, so his actual bed. The sheets were still pristine white. Alfred had his mouth pinched up tight the time he'd mentioned it was easier to get bloodstains out of something you can bleach. 

Clark was the second one to wake this time, to the feeling of a leg slung over his, and of fingers lingering over his back, systematically tracing each muscle, most he didn't know the name of. Bruce undoubtedly did. 

"How is your skin completely invulnerable?" Bruce's voice was raspy and warm. It had been a good night. "I used to wonder if it was some kind of forcefield, before, but your skin feels just like anyone else's. Unless it's a proportionate response to pressure, so the lighter the touch," and Clark gasped as Bruce did just that, scraping his fingernails up the side of his ribcage. "Really?" Bruce laughed. "Do you even need to breathe?"

"You try having someone do the same thing to you and see if you don't," Clark said dryly. "Good morning to you, too." The playfulness was bittersweet. If Bruce were always as at ease as he seemed he wouldn't be Bruce—not his Bruce, as Clark had unfortunately caught himself thinking once or twice, the man somewhere between this mask and the bat's. 

Clark panted carefully through his nose—had to, if he didn't want to flail—as Bruce traced each knobbly vertebra of his spine with technical precision. 

"And whatever cell death would occur in a human from lack of oxygen would heal anyway because you feed on sunlight." Bruce wasn't laughing anymore. There was a reason Clark hadn't mentioned he would heal even if he wasn't breathing. The scar had been gone for months and Bruce could still trace the outline from memory. He'd gone still, palm broad and warm flattened between Clark's shoulders. His hands told the truth, the same way they told all his secrets if someone were to look. He had scars and calluses left by everything from electrical wiring to knife fights, and in those quiet, focused moments under the jokes and questions he touched Clark like he was a gadget Bruce wanted to take apart and look at the insides of. 

"So that's the real secret of Superman," Bruce said finally. "He's part plant." His fingers barely skimmed the fine hairs at the nape of Clark's neck, and Clark shivered as he arched, tell-tale goosebumps prickling up along his shoulders. Bruce's hand stilled again. "Wait, are you _ticklish_?"

Clark cracked one eye open to give him an appropriately withering stare. "Why don't you stick to your strengths and leave asking questions to the professionals, Mr. Wayne?"

"Mr. Wayne's strengths," Bruce said as he spread himself out over Clark's back, breath hot and damp against his ear. "That would be spending obscene amounts of money and taking beautiful people to bed, I take it? And here I am without my wallet."  


* * *

It wasn't a coincidence that Bruce Wayne's talents involved keeping company with beautiful people. Clark had seen it in action, covering a charity function where Bruce had been charming a strikingly gorgeous Kenyan woman who was—and Clark could say this with authority—built like an Amazon. When Bruce found out she was an MD-PhD in Tropical Medicine and Pharmacology he lost even his feigned interest in taking her home and funded her vaccine program instead. 

Whichever mask Bruce was wearing at the time, there was always a trained investigator underneath, one who couldn't afford to be investigated in return. Smart was dangerous, with a secret like his.

If someone didn't already know it. 

Which is why it didn't add up. The first few months—the after to Bruce's nebulous before, since they'd figured out the friction between them could be put to better ends than fighting—had been restrained in a way Clark would call hesitant in someone else. If it had been some kind of force of habit for Bruce to question someone he'd taken to bed it should've happened then. 

The potential intelligence Bruce _had_ garnered from those few cautious months all zipped through Clark's mind as quickly as if he were speed-reading a newspaper: gauging how observant he thought Clark would be when Bruce did start questioning him, making his own assessments before he asked for Clark's, or determining whether the intimacy was worth suffering through in exchange for the intimate access. 

Clark had a brain that worked so fast his heart couldn't keep up. All those possibilities had torn by before he'd even lurched to a real understanding of the last one, halfway back across the bay to Metropolis, and something in his chest clenched so tight he had to careen to a clumsy landing on the maintenance platform for one of the channel markers so he could catch his breath and wait for the pain that was always so foreign to fade. 

Whatever access Batman could've wanted, he'd certainly gotten it. The idea of some government drone opening Clark up to see how he worked had given him nightmares since he seven and his dad had explained why he couldn't join the Pop Warner team. 

All Bruce would've had to do was ask.  


* * *

Sometime in between Clark's visits to the Batcave, he hadn't noticed exactly when, a high stool from one of the workbenches had materialized to the left of Bruce's vaguely bionic chair. At his monstrosity of workstation the two of them could sit elbow to elbow and still have screens to spare, which resulted in a lot of schematics zooming between displays while they argued.

There had been vague indications of someone in the background pulling strings and whispers about a particular kind of cargo coming up the river, something guaranteed to get to both Metropolis and Gotham. Bruce was insistent they had to operate under the assumption that Luthor was behind it all and kryptonite was in use. 

"The container ship isn't due for another week and a half," Clark said. "We should focus on the building." The left two monitors swirled together as he called up blueprints for the warehouse their suspicious shipment would be transported to. For a place that was ostensibly storing small home appliances it had more security features than most government buildings. 

"Exactly," Bruce said. "We only have a week and a half, and it could be days before we get any more information." Nothing changed with the two of them: they came at every obstacle from opposite angles. 

Unfortunately, Clark couldn't argue the point. Getting Arthur to show up on anything but his own time was like pulling teeth (frankly, so was watching someone who looked like that come striding out of the surf and calling him _Arthur_ ). "We don't need to assume the worst about everything," Clark said, crossing his arms over his chest so he wasn't touching anything he could break.

"I'm not assuming anything. I'm telling you we should have a plan that doesn't require you going inside that warehouse." 

"That's not your decision to make." Funny how Bruce never considered extra precautions when they were running into a building full of people with guns.

Sitting farther forward Bruce was only a chiseled profile, impassive. "You're absolutely right. It's a joint operation, we can take it to the others for a vote when we meet with them." The others. Everyone who'd been in Luthor's files, anyone else they could find who could help the way they could. "Until there's a decision one way or another, we need to plan for every possibility."

Any potential Luthor might be involved always made Bruce squirrelly, and Clark had a lot of patience for that. It couldn't be easy for someone as tightly controlled as Bruce was to butt heads with someone who'd manipulated him once before. But they were quickly approaching the point of annoyance where they'd be better off either stepping away and cooling off apart, or burning it off together, and as far as options went it didn't have the same appeal it used to. Making that kind of offer got a lot harder when Clark wasn't sure exactly what information he was offering. 

"This new epoxy they're using," Bruce said, "it's advertised as opaque in all known spectrums between terahertz and x-ray. Do you think you can see through it from the facility perimeter, or do we need to get an alternate visual?"

Of all the questions he'd asked, it was the most reasonable, timely, and appropriate. A straw could break even Superman's back.

"I should," Clark said. "Which you'd probably already know if you'd asked for a full inventory of my abilities outright instead of interrogating me." Bruce continued staring resolutely at the display. "Although I guess I should thank you for not waiting until I'm naked this time."

"It's nothing," Bruce said. "Idle curiosity."

"You don't ask idle questions." Bruce had spun his chair away from the desk and gotten half a step before Clark added loudly, "You had to know I would notice."

Bruce clenched his fists so tight the muscles in his forearms jumped beneath the rolled up cuffs of his shirtsleeves. "Of course I did," he said easily.

Clark slipped off his stool and turned Bruce back to face him with a hand in the crook of his elbow. "What do you mean you—" and he cut off when Bruce picked his hand up, fingers cupped under his like he might ask him to dance. 

Bruce rubbed his thumb across the expanse of Clark's knuckles. "As strong as you are and you can still crack eggs and use a keyboard. You can see bones, hear the blood rushing through someone's veins. How am I not supposed to be intrigued by that?" 

He played the part of a curious lover so well Clark actually shivered when Bruce curled his hand in to kiss Clark's knuckles with a wistful smile. Bruce radiated heat pressing in against Clark to kiss him too, guiding him back into the hard edge of the desk with a tilt of his hips, already moving to unbutton Clark's shirt. Clark leaned his hands on the desk behind him, letting his legs fall open so Bruce could flow into the space between them and push his shirt off to get his hands on Clark's bare shoulders. Whatever his thoughts, his body still had a fundamental trust in Bruce's hands. He didn't shiver in the chill or feel pain at the rough scrape of Bruce's calloused thumb—but he _felt_ everything, always so much, enough that he could fall into them entirely, if he let himself. If it hadn't been a blatant tactical move. Almost half a year of sleeping together and the cave had always been sacrosanct. 

Clark swallowed hard, awkward with his head tipped so far back and Bruce bent to nip at his collarbone. "I can't help but notice you haven't told me what you're hiding."

Bruce's hands fell away from Clark's shoulders, the weight at his hips eased. He went upright like someone had pulled a string up his spine. His mouth was a thin, pinched line. "I have told you the absolute truth." He sounded like himself again, clipped and cranky, and his lip curled with disdain. "I find your abilities. . .fascinating." 

"You didn't need to make me one of Bruce Wayne's conquests to get intelligence about my powers," Clark said as he looked away. "I would've given you whatever you wanted."

"I know." Bruce sounded heartbreakingly concerned. Clark never had been the same caliber of actor he was. "Clark," he said, urgent enough to make him look up. "I _know_." That determination wasn't something Bruce ever faked. He'd never need to. It was indelible, like his fingerprints, or the sound of his heartbeat in a crowded room. 

"If you're telling the truth, what aren't you telling me?" Clark pleaded. There was more to the two of them than a tactical seduction, he could believe that. What else lay there was beyond him. As much as Clark could see and see through, and there was still a wall between them. "What do I have to do to get you to trust me?"

Bruce's face went carefully smooth in one slow blink. "You know, for a professional you ask all the wrong questions." 

This time Clark was the one who reeled Bruce in. "I'm sorry. That was unfair." 

Bruce had his chin tucked down against his chest. "I would be lying, he said slowly, "if I said I blamed you. I know I'm not the easiest person to deal with." He was breathing so steadily Clark could've set a clock by it. He was probably counting. 

Clark had to nudge his head up to be able to kiss him. The wall looked different from this side. Like the fact that he saw it at all when everyone else only saw the expensive art hanging in front of it. Everyone knew Bruce Wayne was an open book to anyone who could read a newspaper gossip column. Clark knew the engineer, the observer, the detective—as difficult as he could be. 

Bruce didn't ask idle questions, and there was something else lurking in the shadows of that, something still hovering at the edge of Clark's understanding.

"Come on," he said, pulling Bruce away towards the stairs. "It must have been killing you to risk messing up your stuff."

If you can't tackle a problem head on, you have to come at it from a different angle.  


* * *

Bruce went willingly enough, so much Clark was surprised at how easy it was, not just drawing Bruce from his work, but getting him laid out on his bed with Clark propped up on one hand over him.

The fine wool of Bruce's vest scratched against Clark's fingertips while he unbuttoned it slowly, contemplatively, and then did the same for his shirt.

Clark had been so worried about what Bruce wanted out of him that he hadn't paid any attention to what Bruce had given him. Every thing Bruce had ever loved or desired was a weak point to be exploited by his enemies, and every question he'd asked was a point of interest: Clark's control over his strength, his breathing and invulnerability, his senses.

"We don't need to wait for a vote to know what to do in bed." 

Clark's smile curved against Bruce's shoulder. "I'm gathering intelligence," he said, but he pushed his hands under the vest and dress shirt together to let Bruce shrug them off, then smoothed them down over his stomach to get Bruce's thin white undershirt over his head and settle against him.

Something else Bruce had given him: all that skin. Acres' worth, when you could get as much out of it as Clark did. If he closed his eyes and concentrated he could feel the slight change in the tissue on all but the oldest of Bruce's scars, the musculature that spoke of the hours and years he'd worked to mold his body to the peak of human capabilities. Stories Bruce would never bother to tell. The heat and pressure starting to pool against the front of Clark's khakis were the only signs of his impatience. Fascinating, he'd called Clark. He had no idea.

"Hear the blood rushing through someone's veins," Clark said, lips barely brushing the perpetual five o'clock shadow on Bruce's jaw, a prickle that never stung. "That's a very specific phrase." 

Bruce breathed evenly through his nose, mouth sealed tight to keep quiet. His bare stomach tensed under Clark. There was nothing Bruce needed to hide and very little he could. He'd been transparent about pretending to, all of that careful reserve bent to get him exactly what he wanted with as little risk as possible. It was the only way Bruce knew how to get something he cared about. When Clark could see it all as a plan unfolding it was more like he was being led in a dance than manipulated. Step after step Bruce moved and left an opening for him to move into. Clark rolled his hips down and their pants skid-jumped together in a slow drag of friction, enough to make his eyelashes flutter. He was aroused in the truest sense, every nerve alive and keenly aware as the understanding of exactly where Bruce had led him began to crystallize.

"You wanted to know," he said against Bruce's collarbone, "if you would be able to hurt me if you were gentle. So it was somewhere you wouldn't use much force if you could. Somewhere _I_ couldn't use much force, or you wouldn't care about my control over my strength, or how well I can monitor your vital signs. Am I asking the right questions yet?" 

"I'll let you know when I hear one." Bruce swallowed hard. It would've been audible to someone without Clark's hearing.

"Does it disappoint you," Clark said to the soft skin under Bruce's ear, "that I don't need to breathe?" 

"Does it matter?"

"So it is both," Clark said patiently. "All right. Blood or air, which way's safer?" Bruce started to tremble, but there was something odd about it, and Clark scraped his Adam's apple with his teeth hard enough to make Bruce hiss and arch. Somewhere under there Bruce was _laughing_ at him. "Well, excuse me if I'm not up on the minutia of chokeholds. Not everyone can be a ninja. 

"Let's try this another way," Clark said with his lips over the throb of Bruce's pulse. "What are the risks? Tell me what happens when something goes wrong." He idly covered Bruce's throat in lush kisses, enjoying the strain in Bruce's voice when he finally started to talk.

"They both cause unconsciousness and a," Bruce's voice stuttered at Clark sliding his hand down over the front of his slacks, "a risk of cardiac arrest. Constricting bloodflow causes hypoxia in seconds. Going for the airway's—" 

Bruce's hand bumped Clark's, and Clark caught his wrist, nothing Bruce couldn't push through. "I would rather you didn't do that." He did appreciate it though. To act instead of talk, that was Bruce. "Going for the airway is. . ."

"Harder," Bruce said, though whether it was an answer or a plea Clark couldn't tell. "Suffocation takes more time and pressure. It's more painful, easier to damage cartilage or fracture the hyoid." 

"Ah. Definitely slow." Clark clamped his hand on Bruce's throat like a vice. Not much pressure, but unforgiving. "Now you can take them off." It was as easy as breathing for Clark to lift up and push back against gravity, moving through it, to take his weight off of Bruce so he could shuck his slacks and boxers together. He waited until Bruce had kicked them off to give a gentle squeeze. " _Just_ take them off," he warned. Bruce's hand flew to grab Clark's wrist, but the grip eased as soon as it formed, and Bruce only stroked his thumb over the soft underside of Clark's wrist.

When Clark had let his weight rest on Bruce's thighs to straddle him and finally got a hand wrapped around his cock Bruce sighed and sank limply into the pillow with a deep groan that vibrated through Clark's hand. A finger could have crushed his larynx and he was utterly relaxed, the way he should always be when they were together like this. His heartbeat was a slow and steady push-pull in the cage of Clark's palm. 

"God, you're beautiful."

Bruce inhaled sharply. 

Before he could disagree Clark poured more weight into his hand and said, "You don't want to argue right now," reveling in the bedrock certainty of it. He was magnanimous giving Bruce what he wanted, cutting off his breath with a faint whisper of air—powerful in a way he never could be otherwise. No matter how strong a man is, there will always be something stronger. You can force surrender, but you can't force someone to want to. That was exactly where Bruce had led him. 

The room was nearly silent except Clark's own breathing and the crumpling of the sheets. Bruce could make noise a little, involuntary gurgling as his face started to redden and his hips started to move more insistently, fucking himself against Clark's hand. Eventually Bruce's fingers tapped jerkily on Clark's wrist, lines of real distress creasing his face.

"I know," Clark said, "almost." 

He let Bruce's hips rock in two more yearning contractions before he opened his hand enough to let him take in full sucking breaths, and Clark held his own and listened so the only sounds in his world were the bass drum of a heartbeat and that gorgeous desperate gasping. Clark pressed their foreheads together and whispered, "God, Bruce," against his dry, tacky lips, choked with his own shame at having so little faith. He spent so much energy trying to be someone who didn't want that kind of power, and Bruce's surrender would never be an _always_ , but it was there—more than before and more to unfold, a _future_. Bruce panted in hot, damp huffs as he came all over his stomach, shot all over Clark's clothes they were pressed so close. 

After a moment, Clark eased up from Bruce's throat to cup his cheek, holding him so he could kiss him the way he deserved to be, gratitude and apology together. He slid off to Bruce's side, keeping his hand on the side of his neck, holding him. 

In the span of a few lazy kisses Bruce's extraordinary conditioning struck again. His heartbeat tumbled towards its normal slow thud under Clark's fingertips, and Clark pushed his hips against Bruce's—God, his _body_. Without Bruce to focus on, that full-body awareness of Clark's had zeroed in hard on his own arousal. He was practically throbbing with it pressed against Bruce, like his body was searching for more of that hot pressure of its own volition even though Clark was reluctant to do anything about it himself. He'd managed so far following Bruce's lead, it seemed selfish not to give Bruce whatever he could when he would never be able to do all the things Bruce would.

Clark rolled gratefully onto his back to give Bruce room as soon as Bruce tugged the tails of his shirt free. He went for his shirt to finish the job Bruce had started in the cave as Bruce deftly flicked the button on Clark's pants to get them open and shoved down enough to leave Clark with his erection poking obscenely through the open fly of his khakis. The release meant he had no sensation at all, thrusting into nothing while Bruce kissed him. 

"Don't bother," Bruce said. "I've got what I need," and then he kissed him again and suddenly there was air in Clark's lungs he hadn't put there. He clenched his fists at the shock, too bewildered to respond before Bruce breathed in with a hiss and air suctioned out of Clark the same way. 

"Bruce—" Clark started, a sound snapped in half when Bruce frowned and smeared his thumb hard across Clark's lip. 

"You don't need to do that anymore." Bruce held him while he filled him again, making his chest go tight. He could take in more than Bruce's lung capacity could possibly supply and it was still overwhelming just for how foreign the sensation of having it pushed inside of him was. When Bruce seemed satisfied that Clark understood what he wanted he let Clark's chin go, and with one last shove at Clark's underwear went right back to his other point of interest. 

Clark fought against the urge to gasp, to _breathe_. Whether he needed it or not it was still an instinct he had to consciously defy, enough to make him lightheaded despite the lack of oxygen deprivation, the physical strain he would never feel. Just as the tension of Bruce jerking him off wound tighter, beginning to tingle up the base of his spine, Bruce broke to delicate teasing right at the head of his cock, too much and not enough at the same time. 

Clark felt more exposed than he'd have thought possible when he was the one wearing all his clothes. Everything was so quiet, only the undeniably lewd sound of Bruce's hand and the occasional hiss of air. Bruce alternated his touch to keep Clark dancing on that edge without sending him over and on every third or fourth of his own slow, calm breaths would seal their mouths together and give Clark one. 

He couldn't call it holding his breath, because it wasn't his to hold. He was empty, hollowed out when Bruce inhaled, stretched and full when he breathed out, another way to let Bruce inside of him even though he would never be able to get through Clark's skin. He was a cock and mouth, reduced to the parts Bruce wanted access to. 

It was much too long, twenty chances to breathe, maybe thirty, before Bruce settled into a rhythm and pushed it steadily past the point of teasing, inexorable, dragging Clark along with him. Right as the tension became unbearable he pressed his mouth to Clark's ear, timed so perfectly it had to be intentional. 

"Next time I want to do it while I'm fucking you." It was the real thing of the facade Bruce had played at, wry without the warmth, and Clark smothered himself in the heat of Bruce's bare shoulder because he didn't have the air to sob. His own heartbeat hammered in his ears alongside the steady drum of Bruce's as he came in a rush of dizzying release. 

He'd been reduced even more from two points to one, his entire existence was Bruce stroking him right through it heedless of the mess he was making all over Clark, soaking through the exposed vee of Clark's undershirt at his throat, on his _neck_ , Christ. 

And then Bruce was turning Clark's head back with a thumb on his chin. "Go ahead." 

He caressed the line of Clark's jaw and watched with that deep, scalpel-sharp fascination while Clark sucked in air, like somewhere next to the part of Bruce that would lovingly stroke Clark's cheek he was updating a precise catalogue of every one of his reactions and how to elicit them, every possible chink in his invulnerability that could be explored. Bruce had opened him up after all. 

In his daze Clark dimly registered Bruce moving away, and he made a half-hearted attempt to follow, only to remember he was still wearing his clothes and—he pulled distastefully at his shirt—that he was _sticky_. By the time Clark's sluggish thoughts caught up to his body, Bruce was long gone, out of sight behind the sleek wall that ensconced the bathroom. Clark gave up and flopped back to the bed.

"Awfully shortsighted not to undress when you had the chance," Bruce said, an echo in the cavern of the lakehouse. A soft, white washcloth landed on Clark's face with a wet plop. 

"My hero," Clark said, muffled and glad to have his smile covered.  


* * *

Later, when he was cleaner and drier, Clark lay still while Bruce traced the whorls of his ear methodically with a fingertip. He could give him that much. 

"I know how fast you can go when you're moving consciously," Bruce said. "So what happens when it's involuntary? A doctor's hammer to the knee, that kind of thing."

"You're interrogating again," Clark murmured, holding Bruce's elbow when he tried to pull away. "No, no. You're a detective. You would be remiss if you didn't conduct a thorough investigation."

"I guess I did have just one more question." Bruce's weight settled against Clark more solidly, and there was a long, calculated silence as he grazed his thumb up and down the column of Clark's throat. 

"Do you have a gag reflex?"

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you playing at home, yes, there are exactly twenty questions, because I'm that kind of nerd.


End file.
